Memorial Evening for Vlado Milunić, Czechia’s Best-Known Croat

17 September 2023 marks the one-year anniversary of the death of Vlado Milunić, a Czech architect of Croatian origin. He was born in Zagreb, but spent most of his life in Prague, having moved there in 1956 to join his parents, who had remained in the city as political emigrants in the late 1940s. After studying at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University in Prague, he spent several years as an intern in Paris. After returning to Czechoslovakia in 1969, he collaborated with Jan Línek on social buildings for more than 20 years. After the Velvet Revolution he founded his own Studio VM (Volné myšlenky, or Free Thinking). His best known work is the Dancing House, AKA Ginger and Fred, on the embankment Rašínovo nábřeží in Prague, but his architectural oeuvre is much larger in scope. He received numerous awards and honours, most recently in 2019 from the president of the Republic of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar Kitarović.